No Rest for the Wicked
by Deviate's Fish
Summary: Maya and Gaige are searching for new Vaults. They may have made a mistake that took them somewhere else. At least they aren't here because of some stupid green portals.
1. Something Always Dies

First of all, please imagine that this story is narrated by an irritated, amoral, opportunistic man with a Russian accent. But he is still very fluent in English. Yes, it doesn't make much sense, but go with it. It's a story about the Borderlands. It doesn't follow your sense of sense…

* * *

"So," A woman with a smoking, hot-ass body smirked over the console with a smirk. Her blue tattoos glowing and visible as she leaned over with a wry look, "What were her exact words again? Just… indulge me on this."

Beside the mature woman was a younger girl with a prosthetic limb and a mad grin. The girl was piloting their vessel through the vast emptiness of space, but she had more than enough control over the shuttle to turn around and reply, "You know what she said. 'Ain't no rest for the wicked.' You were there, Maya!"

"Right," Maya replied sardonically. She was the one who was over the legal age for doing pretty much anything in the known galaxy. Why was she the one sitting in the baby seat while the little girl drove? She sighed, "… Are we there yet, Gaige?"

_They had been traveling for the past two weeks through space to their no destination. On Pandora, they belonged to a group that found a galactic map to all the hidden Vaults of treasures. Of course, the map only showed which planet these Vaults were on, but that was more than enough to get their adventuring spirit rekindled._

_The promise of loot never hurt anyone either, of course. _

"Oh! My! God!" Gaige smashed her hands on the console in irritation. This normally wouldn't have been such a bad thing, except in this case it was. The girl had accidentally and purposely cut off one of her arms in the past (don't ask why) and replaced it with a prosthetic limb that could crush concrete strong enough to endure space travel. However, she did not pay attention to how she had crushed half of the controls, "Shut up, Maya! You've been asking that for the last _330_ hours! Why couldn't I have gotten Lily? She's the best Siren!"

Siren: one of the six mysterious women in the galaxy bestowed with mysterious, reality bending powers. The most powerful of them was Lilith (or Lily as her friends would call her), and she had the ability to teleport entire cities, _burninate_ humans into liquids, and grow freaking energy wings that could power a city on her own. Yeah, she was pretty badass.

"You think you get to complain? Well, I didn't want to put up with a _kid_ either! I'd rather have Axton here!" Maya retorted fiercely. She couldn't help but also blush at the thought of Axton's arrogant, yet very well toned abs. How were abs even arrogant in the first place? It didn't matter. Axton was hot!

Gaige stuck her tongue out as a sign of her maturity as a dignified woman of science and harrumphed, "Yuck! Get your mind out of the gutter and act your age! You're supposed to be the responsible adult here!" Then she made herself some hot coco.

Neither of them, however, was watching the displays, which started to show some rather distressing news, "Emergency! Emergency…"

* * *

"Who are you?" asked the girl intently while examining the Japanese Boy's face. He saw a clear blue sky behind her. She seemed to be close to the Japanese Boy's age. Underneath a black cloak, she wore a white blouse and a gray pleated skirt. This reminded him of one of something out of a fantasy movie about a child who went to a castle to learn magic. She knelt down and looked at his face with a shocked expression.

'_Her face is... cute, like a kind of foreigner,_' he thought to himself. Reddish-brown eyes danced upon a visage of her flawless, white skin and strawberry blonde hair. Actually, the girl _must_ have been a foreigner. There was the cute, doll-like figure that Japanese girls could only dream about. '_Maybe she's half-Japanese?_ _Still, that's some kind of school uniform she's wearing, isn't it? I don't recognize it._'

The Japanese Boy was lying face up, on the ground, but he had no idea how he had got there. When he raised his head to take a look around, he saw a crowd of people in black cloaks who were curiously examining him in return. In the distance, on an endlessly rich grassy plain, he saw a huge castle with stone walls, also reminding him of the ancient keeps in Europe. He shook his head slowly, '_It's just like some kind of fantasy movie set._'

'… _and my head is killing me,_' he whined mentally as he gave his head another shake. The he answered, "Who am I...? I'm…"

In a different world, the Japanese Boy known as Hiraga Saito would have enjoyed a lifetime of adventure. Here in this fantastical world of Halkeginia, he would have seen many sights. The battles that he, as a legendary familiar of a even greater legend, would have been the stuff of epics for many generations.

There had been a talking sword, over six thousand years old, just waiting for him to pick it up. The blade would accompany him on his many adventures, advise him when its age-old wisdom was needed, and bring the fear of the Gandalfr into the Japanese Boy's foes.

And as the Gandalfr, he would have accomplished many things. He would have restored the status quo and protected the six thousand year old lines of succession. Nobility and royalty throughout the land would laud his 'return' as a coming of a new era of greater prosperity.

It would have been glorious, for some.

But such a time would not pass because…

* * *

"OH MY GOD, MAYA!" Gaige yelled at the top of her lungs, not that it had helped any since they were both wearing microphones and the reentering of the atmosphere was too loud for her to naturally speak over. "WHAT DID YOU DO?"

"WHAT DID I DO? WHAT DID YOU DO?" Maya screamed back. "HOW COME I DIDN'T GET A TELEPORTING POWER LIKE LILY? DID YOU EVEN CHECK THE ENGINES BEFORE WE LEFT, YOU BRAT?"

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A BRAT, SKANK?" Gaige retorted. "PLUS, MORDEKAI CHECKED EVERYTHING FOR ME!"

Over their communications device, a relaxed voice of a man with a Mexican (Hispanic? Spanish? I actually don't care all that much about being politically correct) accent called out, "'Ey amigas, you called me?"

"MORDEKAI, DID YOU CHECK THE SYSTEMS BEFORE WE SHOT OUT OF PANDORA?" Maya screeched frantically.

"Me? No, I told Brick to do it," the man grumbled before going back to drinking his alcohol and smoking his weed.

Suddenly another voice entered the conversation. This time, it was the voice of a man who either had too many hits to the head throughout his life or had taken too much steroids growing up. But it was probably both. "Me? I ain't done that, slabs!" He liked to call everyone slabs because he thought everyone who he called slabs were his minions. "I told Scooter to do it. He's the mech-guy."

"Me?" Yet another person entered the conversation. It was the voice of an inbred redneck youth who had never gotten laid before, and probably never will (for certain). "I told Clappy to do it."

"Did someone mention me, the greatest CL4P-TP unit currently in existence, minions?" An annoying robotic voice inquired. He also thought of the two women currently hurtling towards the unknown planet to be his minions… his disposable minions.

There was a collective groan of disappointment throughout the communications chatroom. Even the two girls in the shuttle took a moment to groan and plant their foreheads into their palms. Brick, added, "You're the only CL4P-TP unit in existence, Claptrap!"

"Wait," the Claptrap paused and rewound the conversation, "Did you actually believe that I, the most useless thing on the _entire_ planet, would actually be given a job as important as making sure the systems were good to go so that it would ensure the lives of two of our most beloved friends?"

"…Well, when you put it like that," Mordekai started to say before he was cut off.

"SO WHO CHECKED THE SYSTEM?" Maya cried.

Gaige just shook her head at the Siren and yelled in return, "WE ARE SO DEEEEE—"

Just as a certain Japanese Boy was about to say his name, a certain space shuttle hurtled through the atmosphere. Its engines had not shut off entirely actually, but the shuttle had only enough of these engines online to keep the shuttle from reenacting the extinction of the dinosaurs onto this unknown planet. In fact, it had just enough engines online to stop the shuttle entirely in a stable manner…

…six feet into the ground.

_SPLAT!_

And so, Maya and Gaige fell out of their upside down shuttle only to see a full class of children (with their teacher) staring at them in shock while covered in liquidified Hiraga Saito and soot. Then the nearest girl, a cute, strawberry blonde student, fainted.

"—EEEEAAAAD... or not," Gaige corrected perkily.

"Uh…" Maya looked around hesitantly. "So… 'sup?"


	2. Enter the Glandtrap

"That has to be a record," Malicorne de Grandpre muttered before realizing what he had just said. Thinking that he had only said this to his classmates next to him, he continued to say, "That's the quickest a familiar has ever died, right?"

Twitch.

"Don't look at me," One of Malicorne's few slightly more tactful friends as he noticed the strawberry blonde girl who looked rather red. They all knew how these situations usually ended: in explosions. Yet on the other hand, knocking down the child of one of the most powerful families in the country always made them feel socially superior. "But you know, I guess this means the Zero just proved herself worthy of her title again, right?"

Twitch, twitch.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," Guiche de Gramont interrupted in a manner the thought was gracious, though loud too, "You shouldn't tease her like this. Don't make her life harder than it already is, after all, she will be going home now that we know she doesn't have a familiar. What she summoned was a commoner anyway."

Twitch, twitch… and twitch.

This was just one of the many conversations that popped up. Though Louise had a hard time trying to figure out what her classmates (or soon-to-be former classmates?) were saying, the general gist of things was the same. Her head felt light. Her world was spinning. She reached up and tried to rub away the throbbing headache that had started sometime after the gigantic metal contraption had landed. She turned towards the professor monitoring the summoning ritual for aid.

Like any good, befuddled bookworm, Professor Jean Colbert started to sweat nervously all the while wiping his glasses and looking at anywhere except at his student's eyes. "Well, this isn't unprecedented, but Miss Vallière, you…"

The small teen in question knew what the good professor was about the say. At least, she thought she knew what he was going to say. She would not stand for it! She won't be a failure and she won't be sent home! She was better than this…

So Louise turned towards the two women who had climbed out of the iron contraption that had landed on the first thing she had summoned. They were admittedly more impressive than the dull-looking commoner that appeared first. She shuddered to even imagine what kind of a horrible life she would have had to have a commoner so dull-looking like that boy as her familiar.

These women were different, to say the least.

The taller one of the pair wore a kind of skin-tight shirt that was strangely layered, as if it were light armor. But that would be impossible! It was so scandalously thin. The garment had a pleasing yellow and black colored pattern, but it was not a fashion that was familiar to Louise, as clothing of either nobles or commoners. It was almost an afterthought that Louise also noted that the woman had blue colored hair that was just a shade or two darker than her classmate Tabitha's.

This blue haired woman had flipped out of the top of the strange contraption she had arrived in with a single, smooth movement that belied a very high level of aerobic skill. She was standing very confidently faced with so many nobles, which Louise thought was either because the woman was foolish or she had the power to back it up…

The shorter girl of the pair was an enigma to Louise. She wore a layer of dirt and black oils all over her equally puzzling yet very worn-out outfit that only commoners would don, but she had an _arm made of metal flexing and moving as if it were a part of her body_. The Louise, what was equally shocking was that the metal which the arm was made from was one which she did not know anything about. While she knew little about armaments, she was still the noble daughter of a family with a heavy military career as a background. The arm this girl had, it was either on the level of a square level earth mage or it was some kind of obscure, ancient magical artifact. Either way, it also showed Louise, in a very subtle way, that the pair was not simple commoners.

…twitch.

But for all these warnings sounding in Louise's mind, she still had a single objective. If she did not have a familiar, then she would be sent home in almost all cases. If Louise was sent home, then it would be proof for the whole world that she was a failure.

And Louise didn't want that. She was many things and in her heart, she would admit she was a failure at most conventional magic spells. But she wouldn't give up. If she only could bind one of the women then she would be…

One of the many lessons that Louise had learned from her classmates' teasing her was that it was easier to ask for forgiveness than to beg for permission, after all.

"Miss Vallière?" Professor Colbert blinked as his student stood straight and started walking towards the two curious women. He had not decided what to do about this situation yet, so he reached out, "What are you doing, Miss—"

That was as far as he got before he heard Louise start chanting, "My name is Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière. Pentagon of the Five Elemental Powers; bless this humble being, and make her my familiar."

With that, Louise dove forward at—

* * *

Maya saw the girl coming at a mile away.

Having lived the past year on Pandora dodging bullets that could bounce in ten different directions at the same time, flaming balls of plasma that could melt a men into ashes in less than a half second, corrosive bolts of acid capable of turning whole cities into pools of liquid, and… well, a lot of other, even scarier things, Maya saw the girl moving at normal-girl speeds easily.

Part of her actually wondered if this was a trap, because it was never this easy. It was with this in mind that she did not pull out her weapon, shoot first, and then ask questions. After all, children as young and small as this little girl did not usually attack someone without a good reason, right?

"Hey!" Maya frowned, "What are you doing?"

"Ah, geez! Stay still!" Louise leaped at Maya again, with her arms forward.

"Uh… let me think about that?" Maya dodged another clumsy attempt at catching her. "How about 'no'? What are you doing anyway?"

After several more attempts, Louise stopped and glared at the tall blue haired woman. Drat! She knew she shouldn't have chosen the more athletic looking of the two, but she did want the better looking one… Louise sighed and replied, "It's a blessing, alright? Just stay still and let me finish the ceremony."

"… Ceremony?" Maya raised an eyebrow at this before backing away slowly. She had enough of ceremonies back on her home planet, where she had been worshiped as a Goddess. She adopted an uncomfortable look and scowled at the memories that resurfaced. "Look, we can pay you back for uh… the damages. Just… no ceremonies for me, alright?"

The strawberry blonde turned towards Gaige. She pluckered her lips sinisterly and stretched out her hands at the girl who looked to be around Louise's age.

"Oh no, not me, you aren't doing anything to me until I know exactly what you're doing!" Gaige leaped away. She was not as adept at moving aerobically as Maya, but she too had spent the last year killing, killing, and killing some of the most powerful entities on Pandora.

"It's just a little kiss!" Louise whined desperately as she missed and skidded to the ground. "I should be the one offended, not you! It's my first kiss too…"

They could hear the strawberry blonde's classmates giggling at her antics. It was frustrating for Louise, but not so much for Gaige. She was simply being… cautious. After all, she knew from the way there were weird looking creatures and a giant dragon in the background that this was not a normal place.

"Look, I'll give you your kiss, if you'd just explain what you're trying to do, alright?" Gaige grumbled. She ran a synthetic hand over her pistol handle and dodged another clumsy attempt at kissing her.

Louise jumped at her, but Gaige ducked to the side. Then Louise leaped at her from the ground, only to run into thin air. Louise turned around and sighed in irritation, "Look, it's a holy ceremony. You'll be my familiar, which is an honor! Now stay still!" Louise thought to herself sarcastically, it wasn't as if there weren't any consequences of her not being able to bind a familiar to her will after all, right? She did not mention this however, since it would only fuel the fires that were her classmates.

"Wait, familiar what?" Gaige frowned before absentmindedly dodging.

It seemed like harmless fun, after all. It was like a game of tag, except the girl was trying to kiss her instead of tagging her. It was harmless fun, something that Gaige missed out on, having to have missed most of her childhood escaping from the authorities for something that wasn't exactly her fault.

At least, it should have been harmless fun.

But of course, things like this never were just harmless fun. Louise missed again, and her lips just so happened to land on a part of the shuttle that Maya and Gaige rode to this planet. Normally, this would not have been a problem. But normally, a girl with magic would not have kissed the fabricating part of the shuttle, which was made for a specific reason…

… It was made for fabricating CL4P-TP units.

The moment Louise's lips touched the hot metal (entry into the atmosphere had not exactly left the shuttle to cool), a lens opened and a blue light shot out. From the ground up, it started creating a strange creature with only one wheel as a leg and with a one foot-long box as a body. It was yellow and made of stuffs harder than metals that could be found on this planet. But Louise didn't know that.

All she knew was that the 'Contract Servant' spell was a success. This was proof of her ability as a mage…!

"…*bzt* Loading… Loading…" The yellow box suddenly started moving! Thin, metallic arms sprung from its sides and a strange glass lens at the center of its body began to glow with a bright blue light. "Unit Operating Software booting…" It stated in a strangely aggravating tone of voice.

Louise wanted to jump up in jubilation, but she kept her poise. It wouldn't do to lose her composure in front of all of her classmates! But then it wasn't her who lost composure first.

Professor Colbert leaned forward in interest, "Now this is an interesting familiar, Miss Vallière. A metal… golem-like familiar with sentience, perhaps? What's this…?" The professor leaned forward to stare at some glowing symbols on the metal familiar's body, which read, 'G4ND-1Fr'. He stared for a moment, committing the strange Familiar Runes to memory before commenting, "Well, it is good that you have been able to complete the 'Contract Servant' spell somehow. I suppose these women and that boy were all part of the summoning of this creature, perhaps?"

The good professor's enthusiasm seemed to have snapped Louise's classmates out of their slight stupor at the two strange foreigners' athletic ability. The jeers started rapidly.

"Well, it was only a success because it was a crummy looking metal golem."

"If it was anything that had any real magic, I bet she wouldn't have been able to complete the contract."

Some of the students started to laugh nervously.

Then the box shouted loudly, surprising nearly everyone present, "GOOD MORNING, HALKEGENIA!"

"Wha…?" Louise stared down at the thing that would be her familiar from now on. "Familiar, you can talk?"

"Of course, I can!" The thing bowed exaggeratedly with its arms. It sounded male, but Louise wasn't sure. "I shall introduce myself! I," it pointed at itself full of pride, "am the greatest CL4P-TP unit ever created on this planet!"

"Oh no, oh no," Maya muttered softly, but everyone heard her, "Not another one."

"Yooou may announce me, as the G4ND-1Fr unit," the thing pointed at Louise, "or, as my friends call me, the Gandalfr! If they were still alive! Or if they even knew they were my friends in the first place! But enough of that!"

"…I thought we had just gotten away from it," Gaige groaned before slapping a palm onto her head.

The 'Gandalfr' began to _dance_ in place while still addressing only Louise, "And you… I shall allow you to be my servant!"

"What?" Louise gaped.

"Or better yet, you can be my Familiar!" The Gandalfr unit clapped, "Wonderful, just moments after my birth, I already have a Familiar! And not just any mage Familiar, but a Voi—"

"What?!" Louise shrieked, too shocked at the suddenly talking metal box turning the tables on her.

Maya and Gaige began to back away slowly while staring at the crazy Claptrap unit as if it were an exploding volcano. Actually, an exploding volcano would not be nearly as annoying.

* * *

"Look, your classmates are leaving, Familiar," the crazy Claptrap pointed out. "Did you even pay attention to your teacher, Familiar? Hey, they can fly! That's amazing. Simply amazing! It is so amazing that I want to make my name more original!"

Louise sounded a broken record by this time, having so many strange things happening in such a short time. But at least she was not very loud anymore, "… what?"

"Well, I don't want to just be a normal Claptrap because that's boring, Familiar," the crazy robot explained, "But I don't what to be called Gandalfr, because that's just the same as Claptrap. It's just a designation! So… we shall create a portmanteau! From this day on, I shall be known as Glandtrap!"

"… What."

"Come, Familiar!" Glandtrap charged towards the distant castle courageously, "You must join your fellow servants, and I must ascend to greater heights of power! Let us make haste to return to my new home!"

Louise just nodded numbly and followed the yellow robot.

As they walked into the distance, the newly minted Glandtrap's annoyingly high-pitched and persistent voice could still be heard _all throughout the castle_, "The first thing I'm going to do is make the castle mine! I'm going to attack every inch of it. There'll be graffiti all over it that it'll take your water mages whole MINUTES to clean it off! Bwahaha... Familiar, you're taking an awfully long time to follow me! You know, your ability to space out for short amounts of time will be your downfall eventually. Ah, what should I do first? Oh, I know! I shall introduce Halkeginia to the Dup Step! Wub wub wub wub wub…"


	3. The Calm Before The Shitstorm

Maya blinked as a bearded, old man came running across the castle courtyard at her. The man must have been at least a hundred years old. It brought a smile to her face from watching him jogging in an undignified manner towards the wreckage that was her shuttle.

Breathing heavily, the old man panted as he slowed to a walk as he approached her. "Gre… greetings and welcome to… huff, huff… Welcome to the Tristanian Academy of Magic," the old man wheezed, "I… I am the Headmaster Osmond. Huff, huff… B-but, you, my dear, can call me the Great and Powerful Wizard, Oz!" He punctuated his claim by posing (in a manner that he thought was) majestically, while he kissed her knuckles.

Considering that neither Maya's shields nor Maya herself detected his movement, this was rather impressive. But this blunt cue flew right over Maya's head as she cracked up and started laughing uncontrollably.

It took Maya a few minutes to calm down fully. She was laughing so hard that she had to wipe away tears from the corners of her eyes. The old man 'Oz' was so unconventional and so ridiculous that she wanted to be ashamed for him (especially when he tried to flex and show off his 'muscles') but this kind of humor was rather… different from what she was used to on Pandora. For a sheltered girl who had not met too many people in her life, it was gloriously humorous. When she finally calmed down, Maya replied, "oh… I haven't laughed like that in a while. I'm Maya, and this… Huh?"

Gaige had disappeared. Maya mentally frowned, but Gaige was old enough to kill, so she was old enough to be responsible and take care of herself. Maya turned back to 'Oz', "Nice to meet you?"

"Yes, very nice to meet you too," Oz winked at her while staring at her. Or rather, he was staring at her… neck? Her collar…? Her…?

"Where're you looking at, old man?" Maya backed away, drawing her hand out of Oz's reach. She had seen the look that the old wizard had, directed towards Lilith before. There were no survivors.

"Oh?" Oz the Wizard smiled congenially with his hands at his sides in a passive manner, "What do you mean?"

"Y-you know what you did!" Maya stuttered for a second. Usually, the psychos who had that kind f look would have already attacked or done something… anything… hostile. But unlike the opponents Maya faced on the field, this old wizard was not like them at all!

Maya never had this kind of attention before. Being the lean, mean killing machine that she was, she was more of a horrible monster that psychos told midgets to make them sleep early not… Well, Maya never felt like Moxxi (the uncontested hottest woman on Pandora **_[1]_**) before. In fact, no one even paid attention to her like she was Lilith before either… so it was no surprise that Maya felt rather strange from how this Oz the Wizard was acting towards her. That was to say that Maya stared at the old wizard as if he were a strange creature and nodded dumbly.

"Now, why don't we take this conversation to my office? I'm sure you have many questions and I have several of my own," Oz wiggled his eyebrows suavely. There was a suspicious ring of a bell behind him, but Maya paid it no mind.

"Uh…"

Oz paused, "But, of course, for a beautiful lady such as yourself not to be known in Tristan, you must have traveled far."

Maya nodded mutely, not sure about what was happening at all. She didn't notice that Oz had placed a hand on her backside and that it was snaking down either. "Uh…" She wondered what she should do now. Normally, the decisions were easy to make. She usually had one of two things to do to people, either get a new mission from them or blast them into oblivion. Finding her environment too strange for her to formulate a good response, Maya settled for seeing the sights while following Oz around.

"Now, now," Oz added as he guided Maya into the castle, "If you wish, I can show you…" And so Old Osmond's voice faded from the courtyard along with Maya and him.

_**[1]** Moxxi killed anyone who would contest her title as the hottest woman on Pandora._

* * *

It had been a long day for Siesta of Tarbes. First the some kind of horrible accident happened sometime early in the noon, where an entire class of students were covered in gore. 'All those clothes to wash,' Siesta thought with a cringe about the smell of blood and guts that seemed to linger on her fingers. This was not what she thought she would encounter in a school of nobles, but…

It was almost time for supper by the time Siesta had gotten all the stains relatively well out of the white linens. It wasn't her position to ask, but she wondered quietly to herself why the students didn't just use their water magic to clean their clothes. After all, wasn't magic supposed to do everything better than what the commoners could do?

So when she found a strange girl trudging mud through the halls, Siesta was reasonably upset. She followed the girl, who did not look like she was a noble from her clothes, and wanted to give a stern talking to the girl.

Really! Who in their right mind would have brought their daughter to a place like the academy anyway? Out of all the irresponsible things to…

…And Siesta lost her. The girl sneaked away from the maid somehow while Siesta had been ranting on and on in her mind.

Siesta spent the next few minutes cleaning up the halls. It wouldn't do for one of her employers to find all this mud through the halls, after all. What was worse was that she couldn't find where the girl had gone to, despite these obvious footprints. It was as if she had just jumped onto a cart or something and disappeared!

Fuming silently, Siesta sighed and finished her work. She would be late for dinner, but the perks of being one of the help rather than being a student was that she could eat any time she wanted. So Siesta moved towards the kitchens, hoping that none of the students would accost her over some kind of minor annoyance so that she could at least get some food before her nightly duties.

…And that was where Siesta found her. The girl, I meant.

The girl had a strange hat covering her bright red hair, which stood out amongst even the nobility of the school. However, what really caught Siesta's attention was the girl's arm, which was _completely made from metals._ It was out of place enough to cause Siesta to pause at the door, just long enough to hear the conversation going on in the other side, between the girl, the chef Mateau, and pretty much the whole staff.

"—So what you're telling me is that these corrupt politicians run the whole system?" The girl asked with something of a hysterical tone of voice.

The accusation, most of which Siesta had missed, was enough to apparently cause Mateau to back away defensively, "Well, it's not all that bad…"

"But you just said it was."

"…Yes."

"Do you know what you people need?"

There was a round of answers, all of which did not appease the girl, such as "a new king", "a better governor", or something similar. Siesta found some of the answers rather sensible and her own curiosity led her to keep her ears stuck where they were to hear the rest of the conversation.

"No!" The girl smashed a fist onto a wooden table. From the yelps that this resulted in, Siesta guessed that it was the metal arm that smashed the table… into pieces. "What you need… is a revolution!"

"…A revolution?" One of the younger lads who helped in the kitchens asked in question. "What's that?"

"Wha… what's that?" The girl sputtered. "You… you're so sheltered! No, no, no! Tear down the system! Destroy the government! Take everything over and start over from scratch! Replace it with something better!" She added passionately, though naively, Siesta thought.

"That wouldn't be possible," Mateau sighed depressingly, "How can we commoners stand up against the nobles? We do not have magic. For the work we pay in the sweat and blood of a hundred men in a year, a single noble can accomplish in a single day."

"That's true," Siesta could almost _hear_ the smirk on the girl's face now. "But that just means you need a special kind of revolution."

"Oh? Do not keep us waiting," Mateau said glumly, "The suspense is killing me."

"You need help, of course, but I'll gladly help," the girl replied giddily, "What you want… you can have, with an _industrial_ revolution. A technological revolution! We can start now! And start churning out new inventions and new ways of working and better efficiency and most importantly… SCIENCE! BWAHAHA!"

For some reason outside of her control, Siesta shivered with a sense of foreboding looming over her.

* * *

"Familiar," Louise began to say.

Glandtrap jerked up and down, as if it was nodding, and replied in a singsong tone, "That's your title!"

Louise's lower, right cheek twitched for a moment before she willfully ignored what the annoying-sounding, tiny metal-golem. It was just ignorant, she told herself. Most (read: all) golems lacked intelligence and sentience anyway. For a golem to be mobile and able to think for itself, she must have done something right… right? So she took a deep breath and smirked inwardly.

This was it!

This little annoying, flat-chested twerp was the proof of her ability to do magic! She even completed the contract in one casting! She…

She…

"What are you doing?!" Louise shrieked hysterically, instantly shaking out of her thoughts.

Glandtrap looked up from rifling through Louise's wardrobe. There was one of her undershirts hanging from the lens at the middle of its 'body'. Five pieces of her underwear were hanging from one of its robotic limbs while one of her _silk_ thigh-high socks somehow wrapped around its other arm. And at least half of the contents of that drawer were sprawled all over the floor. "I, uh, was looking, for uh…"

"For…?" Louise growled threateningly. Even Glandtrap could feel something akin to fear (not that the machine could actually feel fear, but it was programmed to replicate what fear from such a machine might be like). The ecstasy completing her summoning ritual had begun to wear off and she found herself less and less tolerant of the little golem's antics.

"Uh… betters ways to help you?" Glandtrap asked tentatively. "Y-yeah! That's right, I, uh… don't know your customs and I want to help!"

Louise blinked and then blinked again. She frowned and thought about the golem's words. This was reasonable, especially since it behaved so strangely! She had never seen this design of golems before (nor had she seen any so annoyingly sentient). "I… I suppose this is so," Louise allowed. Then the thought of someone actually wanting to help her out of their own volition hit her. "Do you really mean to help?"

"Yeah!" Glandtrap replied, "Of course, I've got some of the lessons from some of the best trainers in the universe in my head, you know?"

"Hm," Louise took on a thinking pose and pondered on this. Again, this was also very possible, especially since the golem could replicate so many different… things. It wasn't as if Louise did not know what a 'galaxy' was, but the little golem seemed to want to be helpful, so why not give back a similar gesture? Louise smiled to herself and nodded proudly at her conclusion. "Alright, if what you say is so, then I shall tell you what I have learned so that you may compare my lessons with that of your former makers, familiar. I have covered all the known, updated magical theories of the last one hundred years, though nothing too advanced. The basic usage of will power to be molded into any of the four elements and—"

"NERD!" Glandtrap interrupted like a renegade.

Louise faltered and stuttered in surprise, "Wha-what?"

"I said," Glandtrap turned up its audio volume, "NEEEEERD!"

"H-how dare… I'll have you know…" Louise tried to say, but she was cut off again.

Glandtrap got up to her face this time and gestured rudely, "No, I'll have you know! That the lesson… it starts now! And the first lesson is now to… DOOOOODGE!"

Down came Glandtrap's metallic limbs...

...It was not a good day to be Louise de La Vallière.


End file.
